FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT TATA NANO - PAGE 4

MUMBAI: Tata Motors will deliver the first batch of its affordable car, Nano, during the last week of July, officials close to the development said. Ratan Tata, chairman of the company, is expected to hand over the keys to the first Nano customer. The auto major has already begun dispatching the vehicles to dealers across the country after sending allotment letters to the first one-lakh customers. Over 70% of the total 2.03 lakh bookings have come from non-metro markets.

Nano in Pics NEW DELHI: The Nano is not just the cheapest car in the world at this point in time. Adjusted for inflation, it could have given a run for its money to the Maruti 800, the original common man's car in India. Some number crunching by ET shows how the expected price of Nano adjusted for inflation over the last 24 years (Maruti 800 was launched in December 1983) works out to be 25-30% cheaper than the original ex-showroom price of the Maruti 800. The historical inflation adjusted data for the producer can be used to derive what could have been Tata Motor's price during FY84 had an ancestor of the Nano been launched then.

KOLKATA: Bank loans for Nano will come cheaper compared to the regular fare of car finance. To make the most of the Nano euphoria and grow business in the process, Nano financiers are planning discounted interest rates -- which are tipped to figure at 50 to 150 basis points (bps) lower than regular car loan rates. Whether its Bank of India (BoI) to Canara Bank and Indian Bank to United Bank of India (UBI), the story is the same. Everyone s eager to ride the bandwagon and maximise their share of the Nano financing pie with special schemes.

NEW DELHI: Tata Motors has nominated auto component maker Amtek Auto as a key supplier for engine and suspension components for its small car Nano. According to sources in the auto industry, Amtek is building a large facility exclusively for supplies to the Tata Motors' small car project. This facility will supply parts like the balancer shafts, crankshafts, connecting rods, cylinder block and head, spindles, front and rear brake drums, and the steering knuckle for the Nano.

MUMBAI: Nano, the world's cheapest car, is failing to find favour with Indian families who could not afford an automobile earlier. The low-cost , four-passenger car reported sales of just 509 units in November 2010, a dramatic decline from 9,000 units in July, even as automobile sales surged on easy finance and festival season . Mercedes, one of the costliest cars in the world, sells more than 500 units in India, touted as the...

PUNE: Ratan Tata's dream of making a people's car may have come closer to reality. But for the third generation of the Kulkarni family in Ichalkaranji near Kolhapur, the Nano has revived memories of their late grandfather Shankarrao Kulkarni, who also came close to fulfiling a similar dream fifty years ago. Shankarrao, like Mr Tata, dreamt of making a small car for the masses, which he wanted to make available at Rs 12,000 in 1975.

Nano in Pics NEW DELHI: Time was when people were riled by their rides. Public transport in India is no joie de vivre. Time will be when they may get pride in their rides. Tata's new automotive wonder may not truly be a tall boy but it surely is stirring some tall tales. Walk out on to the main street and you would see several ingenuous, sinuous minds at work doodling out ways and means to adapt the new Nano to suit their needs.

DETROIT: The most-talked-about car at the Detroit auto show this year isn't even present: Tata Motors' $2,500 Nano. The vehicle would violate emissions and safety regulations in the US, Europe and Japan, auto executives from those markets said. The Nano wouldn't meet consumer expectations in developed countries for creature comforts such as air conditioning, they said. Yet they're all wondering how to respond to it. "What we're seeing really is the automotive world is divided into two distinct markets," General Motors vice-chairman Bob Lutz said on Monday at the North American International Auto Show.

MUMBAI: The Tata Nano was a small car that was expected to deliver big numbers — the new plant at Sanand in Gujarat was built to produce 2.5 lakh units a year, eventually ramping up to 5 lakh units. But 15 months after a high-profile launch, it has encountered trouble at every turn — three instances of the car going up in flames and a few cases of smoke emanating from it (the last was in September), confusion about its positioning, a rather unexpected bunch of affluent initial buyers, poor distribution reach, and financing bottlenecks.